


Pocket Watch

by returntosaturn



Series: Hourglass [2]
Category: Once Upon a Time (TV)
Genre: Alternate Universe, F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-12-07
Updated: 2015-12-19
Packaged: 2018-05-05 10:41:06
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 6,161
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5372345
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/returntosaturn/pseuds/returntosaturn
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Second part in the Hourglass series. Snow and Emma come together through the enchanted wardrobe into the Land Without Magic. Snow has raised her, and has tried to impart to her the stories of the land they come from, but it is up to Emma to figure out where her destiny will lead.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> I wanted to start a second part in the series so I can update the tags, and because I am definitely going to have more than 20 chapters, as was originally planned.

_Her eyes snapped open, and fear clenched in her chest before she could even take in her surroundings. Torches burned on the walls of sprawling stone, the floor beneath her gravelly and scraping against her palms like a thousand pin pricks, like a thousand shards of glass as she tried to roll herself onto her back._

_“Missssyyyy….” A voice hissed above her. She sprang up, the dirt floor crunching under her boots._

_“Who’s there?”_

_Her voice did not sound like her own. It seemed outside of her, far away and echoing back to her._

_In front of her, prison bars pointed from the ceiling and the floor, like stalactites and stalagmites, like they had formed themselves around their prisoner, closing in and trapping him there, never to open their jaws._

_“Missy…” From the bars, fingers crept through and curled towards her, reaching and beckoning. Long, sickly colored fingernails clamped around the bars. A face drew itself into the light, its skin rippling and pitted with a thousand tiny golden flecks._

_“Ooh…” The creature hissed. “I’ve been waiting a long, long while to meet you.”_

_“Who are you?” she snapped._

_His head cocked sideways, slowly, eerily, considering her. “You. Don’t. Believe.”_

_“What are you talking about?”_

_“The stories, deary. You don’t believe our stories.”_

_“What…? Who are…?” She stepped closer, but the man—the thing—narrowed his eyes to slits, then they sprang open to wide, full pupils like twin black moons. His mouth snapped wide, showing off a jagged row of gold painted teeth. Something shrill bubbled from within him, a mocking laugh rolling in the back of his throat, hardly a laugh at all. A screech. A maniac’s tune._

_She stumbled back three steps, sliding and landing on her back in the graveled tunnel again. She scrambled, as the madman’s laugh seemed to circle around her, encase her. She pressed her hands over her ears. But even then she could hear it, repeating and repeating in a void. And then suddenly it was over._

_The cavern filled with silence again. Silence so heavy, it was evil all on its own. And then he hissed her name, like a prayer, and it was enough to send a shiver through her._

_“Emma…”_

-O-O-O-

Boston, MA  
August 31st, 2011  
Emma 27, Henry 9, Snow 56

She jumped awake, tears on her face. It had been awhile since she’d woken like this, actually crying. Blearily, she tried to gather herself, to remember that these were just dreams. Just nightmares. She swiped at her cheeks, and tried to slow her breathing. Her alarm clock blared on the dresser, doing nothing to calm her. Eventually, she untangled herself from her sheets and jumped up to slam the edge of her fist on the button. Silence again, this time heavy with reality. This was real. This was her life. Whatever that was, whatever that place had been…

She shook her head, combing her fingers through her hair, checking its state after her restless sleep. She stretched, up on her tiptoes, and once her mind was clear enough, anchored here, she tiptoed into her hallway. The door just across from hers was tacked with drawings and Star Wars posters, proclaiming exactly who’s room this was. She peeked inside.

“Wake up, kid. Time for school.”

Henry grumbled, but sat up, rubbing fists against his eyes. “K…” he murmured.

“Pancakes in ten,” she told him, disappearing back to her room to get dressed.

She was downstairs before him, and when he appeared, he looked all too sunny to be awake on a Monday. She wasn’t a laze-around-in-bed person, but she was slow to get started. He must’ve gotten his disposition as a morning person from his grandma.

“I signed your permission slip,” she said, pointing to his homework folder he’d left on the breakfast bar last night.

“Thanks. Can you add chocolate chips?”

“Done,” she said, making him a plate.

“You ok?” He watched her knowingly from over his glass of orange juice.

“Fine,” she said, sliding beside him at the breakfast bar.

“Did you have a bad dream again?”

Emma sighed, pushing her eggs around on her plate. Sometimes she resented how close they were. No, that wasn’t true. She just wished he wasn’t so damned intuitive for a nine-year-old.

“I did. But its ok. I’m fine.” She smiled, reaching over to squeeze his shoulder tenderly.

“Ok. Can you be a chaperone on my field trip?”

“Already got that day off,” she said proudly. “Unless a tip gets called in.”

“I hope not. Even though…you always get the man.” He looked up at her with a grin.

“That’s right.” She laughed. “But you’re my most favorite man. I’ll put you above the perps anyday.”

Henry beamed.

Once they had finished breakfeast, she hurried to tidy the kitchen, sending Henry upstairs for his backpack. “And don’t forget your lunch this time!’ she added.

Everything at least halfway clean, she gathered up her gear for work before piling in the car to drive Henry to the bus stop.

“So are you gonna say yes to that guy at work?” Henry asked.

“What? Jim? No. Hey, stop eavesdropping on me and Grandma’s phone conversations, ok?”

Henry shrugged. “I can’t help it. Besides, it might be nice.”

Emma glanced over to him while he gazed out the window. She remembered being that child; who didn’t understand where they had come from, who always felt just that tiniest bit off. She didn’t think he was ready to know the truth. Not old enough just yet. But she would tell him. Now she understood how her mother felt about explaining their past. A topic that had not been discussed in many years, if only vaguely hinted at. If these dreams and nightmares she’d been having were any indication that her mother might be telling the truth, that her gut told her she belonged there, somehow, somewhere. Well, in that case, they all needed to be admitted.

The bus pulled up to their street corner where Emma had stopped the car so Henry could wait in the warmth, breaking her out of her reverie. She leaned over to kiss his hair. “Have a good day. See you at seven. Love you.”

“Love you, too, Mom.” He slid out of the seat and shut the door to the yellow bug she still managed to hold together despite its miles and years. She downed her thermos of coffee before she even made it to work, and when Jim pounced on her before she’d even reached her desk, she regretted it. She needed some kind of vice to keep her sane around this guy. He was nice enough but…no. And she didn’t date.

She wasn’t going to get screwed over again. Not with Henry to think of.

She finished her work, with no distractions and no tips. Just a lengthy day of researching and paperwork that made the hours long and made her that much more grateful to get to her mother’s house to have dinner with them before she and Henry returned home.

Once she got to her mother’s, Henry was nowhere to be found, presumably upstairs watching television. Emma helped her mother with dinner, dodging questions about Jim all the while. There was a huge yellow envelope on the counter, empty and addressed with Henry’s name.

“What’s that?” She asked offhandedly, pointing with the spoon she was stirring the pasta with.

“A book came for Henry today,” her mother said lightly, sliding a loaf of French bread into the oven.

“Something from school, I guess,” Emma mumbled. “Weird that they would send it here.”

“He’s been upstairs reading all afternoon.” Her mother sounded entirely too pleased. Not that this was any different from how she normally sounded.

“Grandma!” Henry bounded in, a thick leather bound book clutched against his chest. “Oh! Mom! You’re here!”

Emma looked taken aback. Henry usually met her at the door, talking a mile a minute about his day at school. Today he was so apparently obsessed with this book, he hadn’t even noticed her arrive.

“Grandma! Look at this. Its so weird!” He tossed open the book on dining room table, and her mother bent to peer at it. “She looks like you. Isn’t that so weird?”

“Hmm…It is a certain likeness, isn’t it?” Her mother gave a wily grin, glancing briefly towards Emma.

The oven timer interrupted them, and Emma insisted Henry put the book away for dinner. Afterwards, he was in the living room, cartoons blaring from the television but for all accounts ignored for the storybook in his lap. She watched him from the doorway of the kitchen. There were both up to something; she knew it for sure. She knew them both too well.

She turned, going back to her task of putting away the leftovers while her mother washed the dishes. “So where’d the book come from?” she asked flatly, snapping the lid on the Tupperware.

Her mother glanced over her shoulder, attempting an innocent look. “There was no return address. I don’t know.” She paused, scrubbing at a plate and grabbing the drying towel, turning to face her. Her hair was streaked in bright grey now, wrinkles around her eyes. But her smile was as kind and gentle as Emma remembered from her childhood. “I suppose it was…”

“Don’t.” Emma shook her head. “Please. Don’t say it.”

“Emma…”

“Don’t Emma me!” she sighed, glancing through the doorway again at Henry, still content on the sofa. She looked back to her mom. “Look. It has been years since we’ve even talked about this. I don’t appreciate you going and giving him…whatever that is…without asking me first.”

Her mother planted her hands on her hips. “I didn’t give it to him. It came in the mail. You think I’m lying, use your superpower.”

Emma grimaced, narrowing her eyes at her. “Just because you believe something doesn’t make it true.”

She’d learned that. She’d believed many things. Believed that there had been a happy ending out there that included Neal, and she’d been completely wrong. Believed that one day her mother would stop pulling stunts like this. Believed that there was actually a chance that she’d discover why her dad wasn’t around anymore.

Her mother nodded, smiling knowingly. “That may be true. But I think you believe more than you think you do.”

Emma shook her head again. “I don’t. Because twenty-seven years of believing hasn’t gotten me much.”

“Except a son.”

“That didn’t come by magic. That was reality. I don’t want a future based in magic. I want reality.”

“What if they’re the same thing?”

Emma huffed, squaring her shoulders. “Just forget it. I don’t want to talk about it anymore. I’m just getting upset. We’re going home. Don’t talk about it with him, please. I’m asking you.” Emma waited until her mother nodded in agreement, turning to stack the dishes away.

She gathered Henry up, and managed to get him to put the book down on the car ride home. He was in bed on time, and she tucked him in just like always. She perched on the edge of his bed, picking at a stray thread in his quilt.

“Can I ask you a question?”

“Shoot.” Henry scooted down deeper into the covers.

“Do you…believe in magic?”

Henry shrugged, grinning. “Sure. Santa Claus. The Tooth Fairy. If it gets me a present, I believe in it.”

Emma rolled her eyes. Henry had admitted to her at six that she could stop putting up the Santa front. He was way too smart for that.

“I’m serious.” Serious about believing in magic? They always said women turned into their mothers as they got older…

“I think I do,” Henry answered honestly. “Why shouldn’t it be real? It just makes sense, ya know?”

Emma hummed, considering. For the past ten years, it had just made sense. There was just something about it all that felt right. She couldn’t identify it, and she wanted to avoid it. Because if she believed this, everything changed. The life she’d tried to build for them wasn’t theirs anymore.

She reached over, combing Henry’s hair away from his eyes. He always had so much faith in the world. In her. She didn’t want that to ever change.

“Goodnight, kid.”

“Goodnight, Mom.”

She leaned over, kissing his forehead. There weren’t many nights left that she’d be able to do this. He was growing up so fast, nearly ready to be done with bedtime stories and affection from his mom.

“And don’t stay up reading all night, I mean it. Lights out.” She stood up, clicking off the lamp on the nightstand as she went for the door.

-O-O-O-

_She followed, stepping widely over tree roots and fallen limbs. Her boy ran ahead, calling back over his shoulder at her, but she couldn’t hear him. It was almost like they were underwater, sound blurring together, Henry’s voice a streak of indecipherable syllables._

_Her own laugh stretched long and thin, behind her, above her, but seemingly not within her. She chased behind him, gripping the skirts of her gown._

_The forest was growing darker by the second, thicker and yet she realized they were going in a circle. She was certain she’d seen that cluster of bushes before, the peel of the bark on that birch._

_She’d lost sight of Henry now, but could still hear him, somehow clearer now despite him being further away._

_“Mom!”_

_She stumbled slightly._

_“Mom!”_

_For seemingly the hundredth time, she rounded the last tree in the sequence, back at the start. She paused, waiting, and looking for Henry to appear. To jump out from a hiding spot._

_“Henry!”_

_This time her voice was solid, bright and loud and unechoing. Landing flatly against the moss floor._

_She glanced right, to a woman dressed in regal black, glittering in the fading dusk like onyx. Henry was at her feet, a small and crumpled form, and in the woman’s hand, glowing and pulsing beneath her slender fingers, was a heart._

-O-O-O-

“Mom!”

She bolted awake, gasping out loud when her eyes focused on Henry leaning against the edge of her bed, one hand on her elbow, tugging gently.

“Henry.” She reached out, planting a hand against the shoulder of his night shirt.

“You were dreaming again,” he said softly, looking more bewildered than she ever wanted to see her son. “You kept calling for me. I heard you all the way across the hall. I thought something was wrong.”

“I’m sorry,” she said quickly, swallowing, trying to even her breathing. “Come here.”

She reached over, pulling back the covers and letting him crawl in beside her. She waited until he was comfortable, safe near her, curled up on her pillow. She grinned, reaching for the one across the bed.

“What time is it?” she grumbled, propping up her head on one hand, peering at him through bleary eyes.

“Almost five. We have to be up in two hours.”

“Five? I bet the Looney Tunes are on,” she said, leaning over to grab the television remote from her nightstand. The TV on her dresser glowed in the watery early morning light, and she stayed awake. Henry dozed on her shoulder, and after a full episode of watching Daffy and Bugs battle it out, this started to actually feel like reality. Feel safe and home again. They were far away from whatever that…place…was. They were here and now, with no magic and dark witches trying to tear out their hearts. Because all of that was certainly impossible.

Henry’s field trip later in the week went over without a hitch, and Emma managed to stay through the whole trip until the kids returned to the school and she was called in at the last minute, after she’d promised to take Henry for ice cream since the students were being released early. When she arrived to pick him up later that evening at her mother’s house, he was grumpy but perked up when she surprised him with two pints of their favorite flavors, which they ate out of the cartons on the couch watching some silly movie he’d picked out until he was hardly able to keep his eyes open. She eventually coaxed him upstairs, and tucked him in with a goodnight kiss. He was beginning to protest, grimacing whenever she kissed his hair or still tried to have a little chat before bedtime, but she didn’t care. She could do this until he was sixteen and driving.

His book was abandoned on a chair in the dining room, where he’d dropped his backpack. She was finishing her ice cream on the couch, a rerun of some girly television show playing softly. She was hardly listening. She caught herself, thinking on that place again. The place in her dreams. Though she could be in a forest, or a cave, or a castle, it always felt like the same place. The same land. And as much as she’d avoided talking about it, even thinking about it all of these years, she had to admit she was curious. Why was she having these dreams? And why had they not ceased since Henry was born? Ever since she’d had him, they’d only become more frequent. A few a year at the beginning, now every month. She wasn’t siding with her mother. She wasn’t admitting anything. She was just curious.

She told herself that was all it was when she stood, took two passive aggressive steps to the dining room table and snatched up the book. She set down her ice cream on the tabletop and sat, flipping open the thick tome.

“OK. Once Upon A Time…” she read begrudgingly, beginning.


	2. Chapter 2

She had stayed up until midnight reading, made it through the history of Snow White’s childhood, through her attempts to save her mother, through meeting the young woman Regina, who had eventually turned on her, seeking her own goals and out for her life once she’d spilled the secret of Regina’s true love. She read until she was so full of more questions that she had to just walk away, leaving the book open to the next chapter, where Henry had marked his place.

Why did this seem so real to her? Why did these characters seem so familiar? Painted likenesses of faces she had never known. If her mother was Snow White, as Henry seemed to think…what did that mean for her? 

She refused to read further. 

-O-O-O-

October 13, 2011

“Surprise!”

Henry waved goodbye to his friends, hurrying over to Emma and letting her pull him into a hug. “What are you doing? How’d you get off of work so early?”

She slung an arm over his shoulders, pulling him to her while they walked to the Bug, away from the school and the bus that had been waiting to cart Henry to his grandmother’s house. “A little birthday-week bonus,” she chirped. “I’ve been super busy, and I’m sorry. I wanted to spend some time with you.”

“Sounds great to me. Can we get a cheeseburger?”

“You read my mind, kid.”

They found a quiet burger joint, with tables where they could sit outside in the cool autumn breeze. Emma poked at her onion rings, considering. As much as she’d tried, she just couldn’t get her mind off that book. The fact that everything lined up too perfectly. As much as she held to the idea that believing didn’t make something true, she had to find fault in her own logic. If she believed that, and this was true, where did that put her?

She glanced up at her son, eating contentedly. If there was one person that had always believed in her, always been her scope towards hope, it was Henry.

“Hey. Remember when you showed Grandma how she looked like Snow White from your book?”

Henry nodded over his fries.

Here went nothing. Just testing the waters. Just seeing if he’d disown her and decide he wanted to be emancipated. 

“Well…what if she was? Like really was?”

Henry smiled. “Yeah. That’d be great. Grandma was a rock-wielding bandit in another life.”

She finished the last sliver of an onion ring. “Yeah. You’re right. Its ridiculous.”

“Wait.” Henry paused, and she met his eyes. “You’re serious?”

“No!”

“You are! You think the stories are real!” Henry’s voice rose excitedly.

“Shhh!” She glanced around at the other tables, one lady already shooting her the I-can’t-believe-they-let-her-be-a-mother glare.

“Are they real? Like from a different time and place?”

“Of course not. Nobody can actually take a potion to forget their true love, or trap a genie in a mirror.”

“They could. If there was magic,” Henry challeneged. “Do you know? Did Grandma tell you?”

“Tell me what?” she defended, just wanting to go back in time and erase this entire conversation. If only they had…

“Tell you that’s where we’re from? That’s where the book came from!”

“Henry…” Emma groaned, leaning back into her chair. She knew she shouldn’t have started this. She could’ve just kept her mouth shut. “All of that is…”

“Not impossible.”

She shook her head, the corner of her mouth turning up. “That’s true…Its just…”

If they confronted her mother, if all of this craziness actually was real, everything would change. Emma wasn’t sure she wanted that. She was more than certain she didn’t. This life, however long it had taken her to accept it, was hers and it was pretty good. Just she and Henry, without woodland creatures and fairy godmothers. She didn’t want that kind of interference. Whatever had brought her mother here, it was a long time ago and obviously not pressing enough to be discussed. So who cared?

“Would you really want to be a part of that, Henry? When its just us, and you’ve got friends and school and…”

“Mom. I’m almost ten. You’re basically asking me if I want to find out if I’m a knight or a prince or something epic like that. What do you think my answer will be?”

Emma smiled at him. She wished she had half of his faith. 

“Things are fine how they are.”

“How can you say that when you could be a princess?!” he exclaimed, earning stares again. “You always say that when it comes to guys asking you on dates, or anything else that could turn out awesome.”

Suddenly, she was jarred back to a time when she was sixteen, pulled away from her first true friend, shoved into some new place she didn’t have any desire to assimilate to, accusing her mother of the very same thing. She sighed, leaning forward over the table.

“This is going to change everything.”

Henry nodded. “For better.”

-O-O-O-

October 22, 2001

“Mom. I need to talk to you.”

Snow turned from folding her laundry, watching Emma walk into the room and hesitate on closing the door. She left it open, but stood in the entry.

“I think its time you told me everything about…my dad. And the place we came from.” She could tell Emma was uncertain, not sure exactly how to choose her words.

She just smiled, laying down one of Henry’s school sweaters in the pile. “Alright. How about some cococa?”

Emma called for Henry while Snow warmed the milk. She had been waiting for an opportunity to do this; the book had opened a door for her, paving the way for her to tell the story she’d been hesitant on telling for twenty-seven years. She’d thought about this momnt, and never quite been able to picture it. Through all the years, her sole focus had been raising Emma to be a strong and happy woman. She supposed she accomplished that well enough. Emma was her own person. And as they all three sat down at the dining room table, Snow could remember the day she’d been thrown into this realm like it was yesterday. How scared and uncertain she’d been. Now, there wasn’t fear, there wasn’t a secret to keep. Emma quietly sipped her cocoa, waiting for her mother to begin, and all Snow could do was look back at her with pride.

She took them through the beginnings of her story, her parents’ death, Regina’s rise to power and her own banishment from the kingdom at her step-mother’s decree. Of course all stories that Henry had heard before, but he watched her with wide eyes just the same. She could see Emma, looking far away and distant into her half-empty mug. Once she reached the end of her story, explaining the decision she and Charming had made to escape the Queen’s curse, Emma was glaring across the table with something like determination written into her features.

“So…I’m supposed to…break a curse in a town I don’t even know the location of? And restore them to the land they came from? Because some weirdo wizard says so?” Her expression broke, and now she just looked angrier and more confused than ever. “How the hell am I supposed to do that? How the hell do I know I can?”

Snow shrugged a shoulder. “Technically we aren’t entirely sure of what will happen, or how it will happened after you break the curse. But we do know that your destiny has indeed been prophesized by the most powerful fairy in the land. How do you know these stories are true?”

Emma glanced away, fidgeting with the spoon in her mug. “I don’t know. It just feels right.”

“Maybe believing you can do this is the same sort of feeling.” She reached over, grasping Emma’s hand. 

Her daughter glanced to Henry, and then shook her head. “No. I don’t know. I knew hashing all of this out was just going to make a mess of things. I can’t just take a risk like that on people I know nothing about, for a chance at getting them back where they belong, that might not happen anyways.”

“Heroes take risks. Its what they do.” Snow smiled encouragingly.

“But I’m not…a hero. Or a princess. Or…I’m just Emma. I’m just a mom.”

“Sounds like a hero to me,” Henry chimed in. Emma sighed, giving him a loving smile. It was heartwarming, but it didn’t help the long list of doubts already lining themselves up. Up until a few days ago, this had been entirely preposterous to her. Now that she’d accepted it, figured there was the slightest chance that it could be real, she was expected to save everyone from some mad woman? It was too much.

“I think we should sleep on it,” she suggested, twisting her mug on the table.

-O-O-O-

She senses that they had been traveling this road for some time now. A long, grey stretch of asphalt flanked in thickening pine trees that don’t end. Her mother watches out the passenger window, and in the rearview mirror she can see Henry dozing against the window, comic book forgotten in his lap.

Something breaks the monotony ahead, like a blip on the landscape. A road sign, and as they near it she can read it clearly. Big block letters spell out a name that is unmistakably amusing and serene all at once.

Storybrooke.

-O-O-O-

October 23, 2001

They slept over at Snow’s house that night, and Emma was up first. She woke easily, just still in her place on the couch for awhile, watching the ceiling fan spin. It was real. Everything about the dream was real; she could sense it somehow. It was some insane sense of déjà vu, that was for certain. The night before, she’d backed away, closed herself off every time something in her mother’s story struck her heart in just the right way. There was no way she could believe any of this. No way to convince herself, and no way to prove—or disprove—it until they started looking. Eventually, she rolled form the couch and started breakfast, still mulling over possibilities.

Something in her felt drawn to this place, and yet she had no real motives for wanting to seek it out. Her life was fine. Though she’d gone through a rough patch or two, things had worked out. But then there was the rift all of this magic talk had brought between her and her mother… They were lucky to have remained close, and Emma was grateful. But this was the subject they always avoided, something always taboo and dangerous about mentioning it. If there was a way to mend that rift…

She was just finishing a skillet of scrambled eggs when her mother came downstairs.

“Happy birthday,” she said, leaning over to kiss her daughter’s cheek.

“Thanks, Mom.” She watched her fill her mug from the warm kettle on the stove, her long greying hair catching a blue hint from the cloudy morning light. “Cancel anything you have planned today,” she finally said decidedly.

Snow looked curious. “Alright. What did you have in mind?”

“I think we should find the place we’re from.”

“Today? And how do you expect we find it?”

“I think its time I start trusting my feelings.”

She couldn’t believe she’d said it. She couldn’t believe she was agreeing to this. She was going in half-sure. Uncertain, opening up the door to something she’d just learned to shut away. But what could be the harm in it? There would no knowing if they didn’t at least try…

Snow grinned, even as Emma prepared three plates started the coffee pot. Henry bounded downstairs in the next few seconds, grabbing his plate and scarfing it down before the bacon was even finished cooking. All Emma had to do was briefly explain her dream, her plan, and Henry was in.

The Bug was an uncomfortable fit for the three of them, and Emma promised stops for snacks to appease Henry’s grumblings about being crammed into the back seat. 

And so she drove. She followed the highway until it led away from the busiest sect of Boston, continuing until it just seemed right to change directions. She had no map. She only had her feelings, and it was a difficult thing to trust. Two hours in, she needed a break and Henry needed to stretch his legs. They took a coffee break outside Vermont.

“The closer we get,” Emma said, filling her paper cup from the worse-for-wear machine at the rest stop, “The more anxious I get. I just keep thinking about…my dad being there.”

Her mother just smiled beside her. “So we’re close then?”

Emma shook her head. “I don’t…I don’t know. I have no idea what I’m doing. I have no idea if this is half crazy or half ridiculous.”

Snow set a hand on her shoulder. “I want you to know that whatever happens today…I’m happy that we’re doing this. Together. That you’re trusting this.”

Emma nodded. “I think that’s what’s helping. Trusting. Trusting myself, and trusting you.”

Snow smiled. “Let’s find Henry before he’s bought enough candy to give himself a stomachache.”

Emma laughed in return, following her to find her son and get back on the road.

Night fell quickly, and they’d just barely made it into Maine. Emma was nearly ready to stop, to sleep, to cry. Maybe all at once. 

Her mother was gazing out the window, as she had been for most of the trip. Henry was dead to the world in the backseat. 

This was certainly what she never expected to be doing on her birthday. Ten hours in a car, with her family, going to uncover some legend of their long lost home fand friends and other family she had just decided on believing in. Though she trusted herself and her mother, she still wasn’t convinced they weren’t crazy. Anybody would think so. Not that she cared. It was just the principle. She could’ve had a nice dinner tonight, or at least deep dish delivery pizza with Henry in a sheet fort in their living room. Instead she was trying to follow a trail she could only see as far as her intuition.

She huffed, shoulders slumping.

“Tired?”

She glanced over at her mother, now watching her. Emma shook her head. “I’m just…I’m just nervous,” she admitted.

“About what? Not that I think its unexpected.”

“Just…” Emma paused. How many times had she just wanted to interrogate her mother for the truth? Now they were heading for it and she wasn’t sure she could handle it. “My dad.”

Emma didn’t even need to glance at her mother to know she was beaming. “Your father was…is the best man I ever met. Second to my father, of course. And maybe the Dwarves, since they’d be put out if I said so.”

Emma smirked. “Dwarves? I can’t believe they’re real too.”

“Of course. They were good friends of mine… Are, I suppose.” This time, Snow paused. Silence lingered a moment. “You’re right, Emma. As excited and anxious as I am, there is so much unknown that I couldn’t prepare you for. People I haven’t seen in twenty eight years…I just hope that length of time hasn’t done much damage, The Queen…she’s powerful. Who knows what she’s turned them into.”

Now all new fears heaped themselves onto Emma’s shoulders. Once they found this place, how were they supposed to know who was who? How to get their real family back if this Evil Queen had supposedly cursed them? Her mother didn’t know specifics of the curse. She’d only said it was meant to keep them from their happy endings, which Emma had inferred was a fairytale term for destiny.

“Mom,” she said, glancing her way. “I’m really glad you’re here.”

Snow reached across the console, giving Emma’s shoulder a squeeze. Emma looked away from the road again, just for a second to smile at her, but when she looked back, she noticed a sign she was certain hadn’t been there seconds ago.

From a distance, with her headlights just barely illuminating it, she could tell what it was. The road sign from her dream, with its thick block letters and welcoming serene color scheme.

“Mom! Mom look!” Emma took a hand off the wheel to point. “That’s it! From my dream!”

“Emma!”

In her excitement, she hadn’t realized the car was slowing, stalling. She cursed, gripping the wheel just as the car jolted twice, coughing to a stop. 

“Shit,” she repeated, fiddling with the shifter to no avail.

Snow didn’t even complain about her use of language.

“What’s going on?” Henry mumbled in the back seat, shaken awake.

“Car stalled,” Emma said. “We’re almost there.” Torn between taking care of the car, and getting past the sign post ahead, Emma tried to jimmy the key out the ignition. “You’ve got to be kidding me,” she groaned.

“Emma. Let’s leave it. We can walk. If you say this is it, there’s someone in the town that can help us. Hopefully.”

Easily enough, Emma agreed and stood from her seat to let Henry out. The night was freezing, and she all but forced Henry to put his gloves on before continuing down the unlit stretch of highway.

“Not how I expected this go,” Emma grumbled, glancing back at the Bug, dejected and lonely on the shoulder of the road. Her mother and son were already ahead, but she caught up easily. 

“For a town that’s supposed to be cursed, its certainly an obvious charactonym.” Emma gestured at the sign.

“Why would she have to hide it? If everyone’s cursed, they have no memory. No way to get out on their own. She’s got them under her control,” Snow confirmed, boots crunching against the asphalt with determination.

“Mom, wait.” Emma reached out, grasping her mother’s hand. Her fingers were freezing, skin thinned with age. Henry sided up to her, gripping her other hand in his smaller one. She looked down to him, and he gave her a proud little nod. She smiled.

At the line, they crossed together, hand in hand. There wasn’t any fairy dust, and wooshing sound of creepy wind blowing around them like Emma might’ve suspected. But beside her, her mother gasped just slightly. Quiet enough that if the night had not been so still, Emma wouldn’t have heard.

She looked up, stepping back in shock when she saw a thin veil of mist over her mother’s face, and the wrinkles and lines fading from around her eyes, the corners of her mouth. Her greying hair faded coal black, shortening all on its own to a neat crop just above her ears, as Emma vaguely remembered her styling it when she was young.

The hand that Emma was holding was no longer ridged with wrinkles, but young and smooth. She jerked away, stepping back and gaping at the woman before her, transformed as if the clock had been turned back all twenty-eight years.


End file.
